"We are travellers…not yet in our native land" – St. Augustine
Come now, turn aside for a while from your daily employment. Escape for a moment from the tumult of your thoughts. Put aside your weighty cares, let your burdonsome distractions wait. Free yourself awhile for God and rest awhile in Him.
– St. Anselm
Lovely readers! I’d like your advice please!
At the end of this week things are going to change… My company just approved my request for a two-month sabbatical.
I’m going to use the time for three things. First and foremost, I’m going to use this time to discern the road ahead. Next, I’m going to take this opportunity to tick some things off my bucket list. Finally, I’m going to use the time to have a bit of a rest, a shabbat, if you will…
I’m currently planning how I’m going to structure those two months, and this is where I’d appreciate your input. I will be spending the first week of the sabbatical on retreat at a monastery at an undisclosed location in another part of the United States…
After that, what should I do? Or, put another way, if you had two months off work, how would you spend your time?
Hyperichius said, “Keep praising God with hymns, and meditating continually, and so lighten the burden of the temptations that attack you. A traveler carrying a heavy burden stops from time to time to take deep breaths, and so makes the journey easier and the burden light”
– De vitis Patrum, Sive Verba Seniorum, Liber V
For the last few weeks I have not been pleased with the quality of the Lectionary Notes I’ve produced. They have seemed terse and inadequate and, even to produce notes of this mediocre quality, have consumed a substantial amount of time during my week.
As you may have noticed, no notes were posted this week…
Recently I have been trying to cut down on activities in an attempt to get a little bit more balance in my life. I haven’t felt that I’ve been doing justice to all my different responsibilities by spreading myself so thinly.
I’ve therefore decided to no longer produce Lectionary Notes each week (Don’t worry though, I won’t be Vandapooling!). However, despite this news, I am not planning to give up these notes either completely or permanently…
I originally began producing the notes for whomever was leading Bible study at the JP2 Group. Since most members of this Young Adult group have now led Bible study several times, I will now only produce my notes if the person leading that week is leading for the first time. For those more experienced leaders, I will simply point them to my Lectionary Resources post.
Over the lifetime of this blog I have produced commentary for forty-two different Sundays which, if one includes the vigils and feast days, is approximately 18% of the Lectionary. It would be great to reach 100% coverage, writing a complete commentary for the entire Lectionary. If the Lord grants me the years and the opportunity, I would love to pick it up regularly once again and complete it…
When given the gift of loneliness, which is the gift of liberty, [those who do not appreciate the freedom of having nothing to do] will cast it away; they will destroy it deliberately with some dreadful game with cards or a little ball… I cannot repress a shudder when I see them throwing away their hard-won holidays by doing something. For my own part, I never can get enough Nothing to do – G. K Chesterton
Thanks to Transformed In Christ for the quotation!